[SolubleSnake]

I now see groups of people just meandering between buzzwords and sort of calling it a career. Honestly I know people who were 'crypto developers' 3 years ago who are now 'senior AI implementation architects' and similar..and they have a 'bootcamp' etc....I am a software engineer who qualified in cs but after working around engineering and manufacturing a lot I'm also qualified in CAD...thinking to get into more physical engineering and become a chartered engineer finally and just get away from the bandwagon boosterism. Or become a nurse or teacher.

i'm enjoying making games on the side and I'd like to monetize one soon, but I look at 'tech' careers and I just rapidly lose the will to live now. 30 minutes on linkedin is enough to make most people feel nauseous and need to lie down.

[disillussioned]

One thing I find distressing is how useless most of the knowledge I've accumulated is! I use to try to refresh my knowledge of things learned long ago, once or twice a year, but that's pointless now: everything is a prompt away.

All that, plus the skeleton crew due to my company's offshoring is making me jaded.

[fuzzfactor]

>One thing I find distressing is how useless most of the knowledge I've accumulated is!

When I was still a teenager I just had to have it be the complete opposite way.

Years later I could see it coming first hand, back in the early '80's after PCs came out and the industry grew so fast it sucked the vast majority of technical minds away from natural science like never before.

I already knew as a student, that I would need for everything I do to build on everything I had done before, as an advantage not everybody would have.

The mainstream was always for lots of people to get their degree, stop learning, and they'll be fine.

With plenty more who never stop learning, although traditionally concentrated in academic environments.

For me to do mostly the latter outside a formal academic effort, it was even more important for as much of my work as possible to build for my entire life.

With the personal computer boom you could see the rug-pulls that the growing digital workforce was enduring, where they often could't even use the same computer language for very long before migrating toward another fad. Which wouldn't happen if the growth was not out-of-control chasing as much dream as reality. They could afford it though, the tech debt was swept under the rug, two steps forward with one step back is still progress, and it mainly affected employees below the executive level, which has always made things more subject to fads.

[harryquach]

I have tried focusing my attention on the interview process. Although almost all of our knowledge is a prompt away, interviewing is a skill which cannot be outsourced. It seems like this is the way to outlast AI in this industry.

[vunderba]

I've worked in both education / tech fields, education is more personally rewarding but if you're used to working as a salaried software engineer you will no longer be able to take a proverbial "bath in a bundle of bills" - unless they're $1 bills.

Medicine is always in demand. I did a brief stint in EMT but felt mostly like a glorified bus driver doing lots of interfacility transport work. In addition to regular nursing, you could look into nurse practitioner as well if you wanted a bit more autonomy.

[nathaah3]

this is exactly how i feel!

[SolubleSnake]

I think a lot are feeling a bit like this...Also pile in all the web frameworks etc...on top of 'crypto' then 'AI'...then who knows what...

There'll be another overhyped buzzword in a few years and we will all be expected to get excited about it and I just can't anymore. Realistically the actual business value of software has barely changed in about 20 years except for niche things in finance and R&D engineering (and I know because i've worked in R&D engineering with embedded guys).

I am just not interested in learning to deploy largely pointless AI chatbots or learn yet another web framework to make largely the same ERP or PLM etc related stuff I've done before in the 'framework d'hier'